Looks like I was right about the human experimentation. Shibazaki and Hamura find out that the Athena Project’s purpose was to artificially create people with savant syndrome, a condition where someone is prodigiously skilled in one particular area, usually accompanied by some sort of developmental disorder. They used an accidentally developed drug but it was effective only on children under the age of five and even then, the majority of them died. Five was the only other survivor apart from Nine and Twelve who escaped when they were ten. It’s loudly implied that none of them have long left to live.

Interestingly, the person behind the project turns out to be the same guy responsible for Shibazaki’s demotion prior to the show. Since he was working on a suicide case that he suspected to be a murder at the time, I have to wonder whether the victim from then was also somehow involved in the project.

Meanwhile, Twelve rushes to Lisa’s rescue and finds her in a ferris wheel compartment with quite a lot of bombs strapped to her. Cue desperate but hopeless attempt to disarm them all while exchanging apologies and faintly heartwarming words. Just as time is running out and they’re both about to die, Five calls Twelve and offers to spare them if he betrays Nine and tells her the location of the atomic bomb.

Yeah, it turns out they stole not plutonium but a prototype atomic bomb that Japan was secretly developing. At the very last instant (as in 2 seconds left to go), he tells her. But Nine manages to escape with the bomb before they can catch him.

Again, Lisa is pretty brave here and the conversation between her and Twelve is rather sweet. Unfortunately, I’m a little skeptical about their connection. How did it form? Why was Twelve (and Nine to a lesser extent) so interested in her from the beginning? We get a comment about her eyes being the same as theirs. I suppose we’re supposed to read between the lines and assume that they feel some sort of camaraderie with her. Still, I would have liked it of there was some actual development between the two so that it’d be more easy to accept Twelve’s willingness to abandon the goal that he and Nine felt was important enough to use the remnant of their lives to achieve.

7 Responses to Terror in Resonance Episode 9 – Highs and Lows

While I can’t remember too much else about this episode, the ferris wheel scene is one of a few moments I really loved from this series. It’s got a great somber atmosphere to it as Twelve endeavors to do something impossible but more than anything, the track ‘Von’ that plays is just gorgeous and fits the scene perfectly for me. The soundtrack is probably my favorite part of the show and so scenes like this that push it to the forefront of the presentation really stood out to me.

Oh yeah, that too. The way it’s kind of this cruel inversion of a typical setting speaks to something I think the show does a couple times. These various portrayals of how removed Nine and Twelve are from normal life by associating their activities with those of other people. Like the field trip early on and pretty much anything Lisa is going through.